Durban - The Ilembe District was hugely affected with a number of families being left homeless and the road network infrastructure being affected.
Provincial spokesperson Lennox Mabaso told The Mercury that the severely affected areas in the Illembe District were KwaMaphumulo and Ndwedwe.
Mabaso said as the weekend floods are expected to continue through to Monday, a full comprehensive report couldn’t be given at this point.
In eThekwini Municipality, 16 Disaster Management Co-ordinators have been placed on standby in order to conduct pro-active monitoring of high-risk areas and respond where required.
The municipality says also has human settlement teams have been put on alert to monitor the settlements located along flood prone areas in order to monitor the need for evacuation.
“Only one family in Ward 40 was evacuated due to a collapsed informal dwelling and they were moved to Kwa-Nozaza temporary mass care centre,” eThekwini spokesperson Msawakhe Mayisela.
The municipality says it had to evacuate 190 people from a care centre in Tehuis to Wema Hall, 44 units at Waterways Retirement village in Tongaat were evacuated to St. Catherine and Westbrook Retirement Village was also evacuated Saturday night.
Mayisela said that 80% of health facilities were not affected and are providing uninterrupted service.
“Health Services Outreach Team will continue to visit the shelters and prioritise areas such as SJ Smith, Old Age Homes in the north,” he said.
Mayisela said there are 82 care centres open to accommodate people in the city and the safer cities shelters for the homeless are still operational and will accept people to be accommodated in the event they wish to be accommodated at much safer places.
“Relief interventions are ongoing to ensure that all community halls with displaced people are receiving adequate relief assistance, social support services and medical assistance.
“Provision of non-perishable items, clothing, blankets and mattresses are available to assist those in need,” he said.
Electricity was also interrupted in some areas in eThekwini when the Bayhead sub-station had to be switched off to prevent flood-related breakdowns.
“We want to remind our residents that our electricity infrastructure is still vulnerable since the April floods and any amount of rain can cause severe damage to it,” Mayisela added.